Last week I felt a strong nudge to get closer to God and to let go of more and more, partly self-imposed, duties. As a woman, you might know how difficult it is to get rid of old habits and of letting go to care for others (more than they really need it) in order to meet EVERY expectation perfectly. I have also been used to care for my body daily and I sensed that my exhausting workouts tend to make my life more and more burdened. However, I could not get rid of swimming ‘the English Channel’, so to speak. 😉 I do know that I am no longer twenty or thirty and therefore I had begun to take at least one break during the day some years ago. Mostly after dinner I spend time in bed praying. Admittedly, sometimes I fall asleep because of exhaustion. 😉

Nonetheless, just lately as I had started to feel this nudge from God getting stronger and stronger, it seemed to be an impossible thing to find any kind of rest at all. Instead, more and more noisy construction sites outside (during the day, in the evening, some even in the night time) and several sources of noise inside our apartment building made it an impossible thing for me to get away from it all. More and more I felt stressed out, too, when people approached me outside the house, sharing their problems with me as I tried to find a restful place just for me. I knew my soul’s reaction was an alarm signal to really withdraw from it all. But how? And when?

About a week ago our daughter left again as she visited her boyfriend in Upper Bavaria so that I had not so much to do AND, lo and behold, some construction sites seemed to take a break, too. Also, I have perceived for months now that God told me without words, again and again, that I should follow His leading in ALL things more closely, even regarding the tiniest and unimportant things like answering phone calls, emails, chat messages, and that I should only speak with other people when He told me to, including my own family. Oh boy, THAT has been difficult! So many old habits to overcome! Yikes!! 😛 For me, it has been a big struggle at times since I had to react counterintuitively and unreasonably in my view, questioning myself by asking, “Should I REALLY alienate friends/relatives by IGNORING them somehow?”But thanks be to God, His peace followed my obedience immediately and I could even drop my workouts (more than) every other day lately as I took heed of God’s leading and, finally, found more and more rest and joy, even during my workouts that had become a mere duty of sorts like everything else I had done. 😊 That is wonderful, I thought, and I felt gratefulness toward God again, after a VERY long time of feeling nothing which was some way or other somehow positive. However, dear reader, this is not the end of the story.

As it is always the case when God gives us a revelation of sorts, He allows us to make our initial positive experiences with what He told us, but then Satan comes in and attacks our newly won faith in order to sift all doubts right out of us. Restful and joyful Susanne, aka me, as she was no longer driven by necessity as Michael Clark often says, got attacked by a legion of demons that confused her mind and made her all upset and worried. Eventually, former happy me fell sick with fever and summer cholera last weekend. And of course, noise in any form came back, too! BOOM! BANG! CLASH! CLANK! But now, more than before, I really needed to recover, even physically! I often fell asleep for a few minutes and awoke with terror when another noise had begun to torment my ears. Prayer? You could easily forget it!

Is there any hope to win such fights when the attacks do not stop increasing? Yes, it is. Although it is much easier to give up and give in to Satan when he weakens and discourages us even physically. Having had toothaches for 13 months now, I know what I am talking about! 😛 Indeed, I cannot count how often the devil has been the winner who subjugated my flesh without much resistance from me. I knew when I had followed him by giving up, yet I was too weak to go against him. This does not really sound like the testimony of an overcomer, eh? 😉 But it should do since the overcomer is Jesus Christ! It is only IN Him where we find our victories would already be fought and won at Calvary. However, we cannot reach this spiritual condition unless He is the One who transfers us into Himself (cf. John 15:5) so that we can share His victories as ours. This is the Good News of the Scripture that says,

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Cor 3:21-23 ESV)

Brothers and sisters, ALL things are ours in Christ. Our good and our bad past which is so difficult (read impossible) to let go of, our future that frightens and worries us, and our present time we hardly perceive because of our mind being obsessed with thinking about the past and the future JUST NOW. Jesus told us,

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (Jn 10:10)

May God help us ALL to get there, into Himself, where ALL things are ours and where real LIFE begins. Amen.

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15 thoughts on “Worth the Fight… Extending Inner Quietness”

Wow, Susanne, I am right with you, but in different ways perhaps. As you and Michael know that I end up moving around quite a bit and am back in Tampa, FL. I felt an immediate quickening in my spirit as soon as I approached this city. Although, I first stayed at one friend’s house and that didn’t work out due to situation that I did not fully understand, I ended up at another friend’s house and I yearned for privacy since I have been here. I am deaf too! The only way I can escape the noises in this house is to turn my hearing aids all the way down or take them off!

I too sensed that I needed to be more diligent with my morning readings beside Austin T. Sparks. So, I have been doing that. I am living in a household that is very deceptive in my opinion. And have been threatened as well. Last night was so very noisy that I literally just turned my ears off and went to sleep early. I don’t want to be involved with what is going on. My inner being is screaming. But…..I do believe God our Father is making a plan of escape for me. Yes. I will find out this weekend. I am going to copy and paste something here that I read just the other morning. I think yesterday. I was happy to have read it. Hold on…

One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on. (Philippians 3:13-14 NIV)

The Lord desires us to go on. Sometimes going on means loneliness in going on where others cannot go with us. That means a price is bound up with obedience. It may mean a big break, a big change. It is the challenge of whether we are adjustable before the Lord. Our adjustability is the proof of our utterness for the Lord. That proof being there, the Lord is able to bring us on into all His thought. Let us remember always that we shall never get to a place while we are here where there is not some higher level and some greater fullness of Christ. There will always be yet another step, and perhaps another after that, higher on. Let us have our hearts set upon reaching all. The Lord will so graduate things as to make the challenge not too severe. He takes us a step at a time, and He does not want us to take six steps at a bound, or to contemplate six steps at a time. He shows us our next step, and that is all we have to be concerned about now. The other steps will come at the right time. Every step prepares us for the next.

Very often our lives are like mountain climbing. You see from below to a certain height, and that seems to be the top, and you make for it. And when you get to it, you see a little further on that there is another top. You think that must be the very top, and so you make for it, and when you get to it there is something still further. You never do seem to get to the top! But we shall arrive at last. The Lord hides the other things and says: “Now, that is your next step; obey that and fuller revelation will come after that.” Those of us who look back and see how terrible a thing it would have been if the Lord had shown us at one time all that to which we have been brought, know that if we had seen it all at one time, we could not have gone on. We see that He brought us by stages, and today we are not ungrateful for the price paid, in view of the measure of Christ which we enjoy and the greater fullness of revelation. Let us ask the Lord to put into us the spirit of His servant: “Not that I have already obtained it… but one thing I do… I press on….”

By T. Austin-Sparks from: That Which Was From The Beginning – Chapter 3

In fact, dear Stacey, this TAS devotional from yesterday spoke to me as well and it got me thinking a lot. 😉 To put the whole thing briefly by jotting down the first and last words of the devotional: “One thing I do…. I press on.” 🙂

As nice as mountain tops are, there is always an end to these experiences which, though overwhelming, often push the self back into our old nature’s habits. From hence, suffering and trials in between mountain top experiences make sense until our self has been chiseled down and ground off to nothing so that HE alone can work in us and through us.

As I finished reading your post I noticed how apropos the last picture is…. a chair lift high above all else. Yes, as we rest in Christ we are more than OVER-comers and are able to rise above all that the enemy and this world throws at us. Thanks for sharing your life with us in such openness, Susanne. ❤️ You are an inspiration to me👍

Indeed, Michael, it was God who nudged me to choose this photo at the end of the entry. Even as I took the picture back then in May this year as I was hiking in the Alps, something about this scenery spoke to me… this lonely chair (lift) seemed to promise something I have urgently sought for: loneliness WITH God and rest.

You are very welcome as to my openness and sharing. I cannot do any other. 😉 Just yesterday I almost finished another blog post which is sleeping in my archive now 😉 since God made this ongoing topic of quietness and rest for our souls alive to me today, once again. And it was a joy to write this article! 🙂

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; to which you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (2Pet 1:19, KJ2000)

Very good, Susanne. To know quietness within as only Christ can give in the midst of chaos, THAT is a miracle. “Peace I give unto you…peace that surpasses all understanding.” Again it is the refining in less than ideal circumstances that God use to work His Son’ life in us.

I must be honest with you… As I saw the notification of the reblog in my Google inbox, I gladly sensed that God made us one again as He did so often in the past since He had told me beforehand that you would post this entry on A Wilderness Voice, too. Thank you for listening to Him, my brother. 🙂 I am so grateful to be your sister, Michael!

Peace that surpasses ALL understanding, indeed. Anything less than this and we cannot overcome this world and all those adverse circumstances we have to meet in our everyday life.

Suzanne, this word is timely. I, of late, have been very desirous of inner quiet. I have silenced my land lines, leave the TV off. Have divested myself of many “activities” and wait. When God speaks it is exquisite. So many around me are crying that they wish they could simplify their lives. I pray they can get there. And that I can get there more!! Amen

Glad to hear that you found this article timely for you as well. Simplify our lives, that’s it, indeed! Satan makes this world, our relationships, and circumstances so complicated. He keeps us running to and fro, even in our minds. But we need the faith of little children in order to get to The Promised Land which is the Kingdom of God. May He give us His faith so that we can enter and stay there – forever!

I often take your posts in and mull them over for awhile, as they are so profound. But I had to laugh out loud where you wrote, “As a woman, you might know how difficult it is to get rid of old habits and of letting go to care for others (more than they really need it) in order to meet EVERY expectation perfectly.”

How familiar this is! We set unrealistic expectations for ourselves, sometimes going so far as to choke those we love with our attention. :))) I remember my grandmother describing how they would overfeed the geese to fatten up them for Christmas dinner. We are, you might say, fattening our loved ones with all our “self-sacrifice” — whether they like it or not.

You would think that we’d learn to make more time for God. But the flesh is stubborn. It’s the Martha v. Mary Syndrome. We like the accolades for our efforts. And if they are by chance absent, we can always wallow in self-pity.

It really feels like self-sacrifice and we could easily mistake it with selfless love if His peace followed our sacrifice. But as you say, self-pity follows when our love is rejected. This kind of soulish, fleshly love is truly bondage, a prison only God can free us from. May He do so.

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
(John 3:16-17 ESV)

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